–  Don’t you answer me back, madam! Don’t you dare! I don’t see you for months and the first thing you do is cheek me?

–  Well, you knew where I was.

She turned away, neck on fire, to set a tray with the good china that only ever saw the light of day for priests and Christmas. I was a visitor, without a shadow of a doubt. I would always be a visitor from now on and I would take tea. The hope that I’d be let home when the baby was born faded. I’d not be going back to school. I clamped a big lump of my cheek between my teeth to stop the tears and I lifted the cup by the lip not the handle and put it down too hard on the wooden table instead of on the saucer. She winced but didn’t say a word. Out came a plate of Mikados on a paper doily, hang the expense.

–  So, how’s it all going down there?

–  Married life, you mean?

–  Well all of it? How are you finding … the conditions?

–  The conditions are not good.

–  Well, it’s a rough house, always was. John could get a grant to modernise, you know; you should talk to him about it.

Talk to him? Talk to John Johns? Was she insane? That would mean sitting in the same room as him, not shaking like a kicked dog under a table.

–  We don’t exactly talk. And even if we did, I’m not sure he’d be too interested in what I had to say.

–  What do you mean, you don’t talk to him? He’s your husband.

–  I know, you picked him out for me, remember?

She was a class act. She hadn’t talked to my father for years! He talked to the cows, if indeed he talked. For all that, my little dig didn’t go down well. I could see she was fighting to keep her temper. She’d married me off with a bastard on board and I was still churlish. I would never learn. She’d done her level best over the course of my childhood to get me to see sense but my damned Rattigan weakness just couldn’t be remedied.

–  Mary, it doesn’t pay to be so brazen. Have you no shame at all?

–  None. Have you?

The sweet coconut and jam smell of the Mikados wafted between us in the silence. The clock ticked on. Finally, Matthew came in and nearly passed out with the shock of seeing us together over the teapot.

–  Jesus, Mary! How are you? You’ve come visiting then, at last, wha’?

–  Don’t take the name of our Lord in vain, Matthew Rattigan!

–  Aye, I’m just visiting, Matty. I’m off in a minute but I’ll be back soon. Mammy was just sayin’ how much she’s lookin’ forward to helpin’ me with the baby.